Oh how the breed has changed!

[Wally]

HAve alook at this and you'll see just how much the Shetland pony has changed over the years.

This is a link to the Shetland Museum photo archive. It's quite facinating!

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/shetlands/app?service=external/SearchResults&sp=L0:ponies

It seems the code in the middle of the web address corresponds to one of the smilies. There is not supposed to be a smilie in the middle of the address. You'll have to type it in full sorry. Where the smilie is in the last bit should read =L O : ponies (with no spaces)

[Wally]

try this and then type "ponies" into the search box


http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/shetlands/app

[Wally]

Nearly fell over backwards when I typed Horse into the search....there's nothing THIS classy in the islands today! Don't know who it belonged to but they must have had some money to spend back then!

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/shetlands/app?service=external/SearchResults&sp=L0%3Ahorse&sp=60543&sp=SItem

[Alex]

wow, they really have changed, haven't they?
:)

[Sarah]

blimey!

Those Shetlands look really leggy don't they - almost like a Welsh B, or a hairy TB that someone left out in the Shetland rain so they shrunk!

Tha horse doesn't look like the most suited to your climate or to picking it's way over your moors at all! i bet he was kept in 24/7 rugged up to the nines!

bye!

[Esther.D]

Great photos.....you can really see the influence of Lord Londonderry's breeding for the pit ponies in the modern pony rather than the longer legged older version!

I found a great quote the other day for anyone who knocks the carrying ability of the shetlands:

".....yea there are some whom an able man can lift up in his arms, yet will carry him and a woman behind him 8 miles forward and as many back summer or winter"

This was written by John Brand, a visitor to Shetland in 1700.

So Wally, I'm not surprised Andy Pants take your weight - he could take two of you:D

And if anyone was thinking that working like this would shorten their lives, they are reported by the same author (and a number of others of this period) to still be working well at 24 and living to at least 30:eek:

Admittedly the Shetlanders of 1700 might have been lighter weight but still to carry two is not bad going!

Oh and I had a look at one of my Shetland books and apparently in 1837 an arab stallion was running on Fetlar, and there was another record of one later on. I doubt there are many arabs up there today Wally?

[anuvb]

I've only had a quick peek at the web-site so bear with me but I'm a bit confused (it easily happens) :)

On the website, under the ponies in all the older photos they all seem very tall, or should I say leggy by comparison. Yet, when I looked under horse, what looks like the "taller" Shetland pony, is now called a shetland horse (page two on the search results). Are there two distinct breeds? And if not, does anyone know why has the shorter version been selectively bred over the years? I think I'd quite like a horse with a Shetland personality ;) :D

[Wally]

The old Shetland dialect is based on old Norse languages, there is no word for "pony" in old norse, they are all horses.

Some of the old folk don't use the word pony, they will ask " Does, du hae hoarses?" when what they mean is Shetland ponies, if they mean do you have ponies of 12hh and above, up to Clydesdale proportions they will ask if you have BIG horses! Some folk will call them a pony, the older folk and dialect enthusiasts will call the Shetland pony a horse, no two distict breeds just a name.

Esther, there was a lady who came up from Essex with several Arabs to breed them, she told me they could withstand minus so many degrees in the desert and they were tough as any Shetland and they were to live out all year un rugged! Minus several degrees in a dry still desert is on thing, plus 4 in a force 12 with driving rain is what kills things.

We had a big storm in January and two of her Arabs died in it......I hate to say this, but she was told and wouldn't listen to the local experience. She has since moved back south to breed her Arabs. There is a good reason we have horses from northerly climes and that they are built the way threy are.

[Esther.D]

I did wonder...after all my book did not say how long the arab stallions were running and whether they were stabled etc and coddled. I thought that even tough arabs would be hard pushed to stand the gales, but never having been on Shetland I wasn't sure. People wander how ours do so well up on the fells here...but it must be positively balmy weather in comparison with what they were originally bred for:) Saying that even on our fells Pablo needs to be well rugged or he drops weight, and he was never rugged up when we were down in the valley. Rupert is rugged up too as a precaution but his comes off as soon as spring approaches and I reckon he could survive without one at a push..and naturally the shetlands are naked and loving it;)



And if not, does anyone know why has the shorter version been selectively bred over the years?

I don't know if this is the case for the ponies on Shetland but the mainland bred ponies were selectively bred small and stocky after the 1840s when woman and children were banned from the mines - they brought in ponies but they needed to be small enough to pull tubs in seams previously worked by children. They were trialed in Durham and caught on...Lord Londonderry set up a big stud supplying them..and the rest is history!:)

[artemis]

I live on top of a hill & in the bad weather my shetland is the first one in, he ducks past the others practically tripping them up. I am afraid that he has grown soft - he likes his creature comforts!:D